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My mom has a lot of these tapes, and was wanting to get them onto DVD.

I know you can send them places, and they convert them for $10 or so. The problem with this is that she has a lot, and this price can escalate. Another reason is that there are some precious memories, and she isn't comfortable letting them go in case they get lost, ruined, etc.

She doesn't have a camcorder anymore.

Here is what I am thinking. Get a used camcorder to play the tapes. Connect it to computer with Dazzle or something like that, and just hit play on the camcorder and record it all to DVD. She's not concerned with menus or anything else. She just wants to make copies to help preserver, and to also send copies to all of her kids and stuff so we can have them as well.

There is video8, hi8 and digital8. You're going to want to find out which one, they all use the same size tape and the format listed on the tape is not necessarily what is on the tape. Do you know what year the camcorder was purchased?

If you're going to take a guess the best thing to do is find a digital8 camcorder that will also accepts hi8 becsue you can kill two birds with one stone if they are hi8. I know those were made but I'm not sure whether they made any that accept video8. With that camcorder whether the tapes are hi8 or digital 8 you would only need a firewire cable and firewire port on your computer. The hi8 are analog but the cam will convert it to DV to send over the firewire. Digital8 was the predecessor to mini-DV, it's the same exact video format as mini-DV, the only difference is the size of the tape. There isn't whole lot of them around.

The second option if the tapes are video8 or hi8 and you already have a miniDV camcorder is to check to see if it has the pass-through feature. In this case you would still need the video8 or hi8 camcorder and you would connect it to the mini DV camcorder which will convert to digital. I mention this becsue if you have one these camcorders you have one the best methods to convert right under your nose and it isn't going to cost you anything.

I'd suggest looking on craigslist and ebay for a camcorder first because you absolutely need one that will play the tapes, they aren't going to be cheap.

When you find one you can look it up here to see if it has the features I mentioned. Those features are usually listed on the last page of the review.

Once you get them on your computer using these methods the files will be in DV format and about 14GB's per hour. This is much better format than MPEG2 which is used for DVD. You'd would use these for archives and use software on your computer to create DVD's. Going right to DVD with a recorder is another option but not one I prefer. It's certainly faster and easier but isn't the better process for archiving.

My mom has a lot of these tapes, and was wanting to get them onto DVD.

I know you can send them places, and they convert them for $10 or so. The problem with this is that she has a lot, and this price can escalate. Another reason is that there are some precious memories, and she isn't comfortable letting them go in case they get lost, ruined, etc.

She doesn't have a camcorder anymore.

Here is what I am thinking. Get a used camcorder to play the tapes. Connect it to computer with Dazzle or something like that, and just hit play on the camcorder and record it all to DVD. She's not concerned with menus or anything else. She just wants to make copies to help preserver, and to also send copies to all of her kids and stuff so we can have them as well.

Anyone have any suggestions for this project?

I transfered my 8mm tapes to dvd a few years ago and gave copies to family also copied vhs tapes to dvd.I organized the childrens birthdays in chronological order individually along with vacation.I used a VHS adapter in which you place 8mm tape.You do this by monitoring tapes on TV connected to recorder,start & stop.I have recorder sitting on shelf,I have no use for it any longer,you may DM me if you would like to purchase it,it is a Sansui model 57-57103 dvd rw recorder,very intelligent device.I just opened box and VHS adapter for 8mm not there,will look for it,maybe can be found on ebay.

What you are describing has to be VHSC, thees tapes are about the same size as 8MM with the exception of the thickness which is the same as VHS. The adpter will work for VHSC becsue it's the same physical tape and format, it's just smaller cassette. An 8mm adapter for VHS would basically require a small VCR that could fit into the footprint of VHS tape and be able to transfer the signal to the VHS head, in addition to that VHS is downgrade in quality over hi8 or digital8. Even if such an adapter existed It would really be pointless over just getting a player that could play 8mm.

What you are describing has to be VHSC, thees tapes are about the same size as 8MM with the exception of the thickness which is the same as VHS. The adpter will work for VHSC becsue it's the same physical tape and format, it's just smaller cassette. An 8mm adapter for VHS would basically require a small VCR that could fit into the footprint of VHS tape and be able to transfer the signal to the VHS head, in addition to that VHS is downgrade in quality over hi8 or digital8. Even if such an adapter existed It would really be pointless over just getting a player that could play 8mm.

I would not try anything but the correct adapter to transfer and record.There is no degrading of quality,we even have the landing on the moon,picture recorded on 8mm from TV.This machine plays VHS tapes,controlled by remote,if you google model # you will see Amazon sold it for $399.
I do not know what you mean by recorder playing only 8mm??The machine has nothing to do with 8mm,it plays VHS and dvd,has slot for each,I transfered probably 40 plus tapes.

You can get adapters for VHSC tapes which are smaller than VHS but have the exact same format and tape width. The C stands for compact. A VHS deck can play these because they are recorded in VHS and the the tape itself inside the cassette is the same thing as standard VHS. You could actually take the tape itself out of the VHSC housing an put it into a VHS housing, no adapter required. The adapter is just a mechanical device to accommodate the smaller size.

This is what your tape looks like right? These are VHSC tapes, they are not 8mm.

8mm are a higher quality video format and not compatible with VHS decks. As far as I know there is no adapter available and if there were it would be pointless for the reasons I've already outlined. You need a camcorder compatible with video8/Hi8/digital8 depending on what video format they were recorded in, they don't make decks that play these formats unless you want to spend $$$. .

As said went into building where we have boxes packed for move and found adapter for downloading old 8mm tape to DVD.
The adapter Pansonic VHS Play Pak VYMW0009 is exactly a modified VHS tape housing with battery on side.I used this in my Sansui vhs recorder/player to record to dvd/rw.I will not sell at this time,correct information,has nothing to do with C.

I think you're right coalman, I too have a JVC handheld camcorder that uses VHS-C type mini tapes, and I too was searching for a way to put my old home movies onto DVD.

I already had one of those VHS-C adapters, you place the C Tape into the adapter, place the adapter into a lost on a VHS player, and on the VHS Player audio/video Out, run composite wire rca plugs into ez cap on a destop pc, my pc has a vista OS.
It took a bit of reading the manual and some experimentation to acquire the video quality desirable, but it works!
EZ Cap is compatible with windows movie maker.
A ez cap plus is that movies on a dvd or vhs which are macro encoded? ez cap doesn't recognize the macro encoding, so those old vhs tapes and dvd's can be recorded onto a dvd or a dvd-rw!

Transferring is time consuming though. People should be prepared to watch every recording/downloading all the way thru, and when using windows movie maker to burn onto a dvd or dvd-rw, people should walk away from the pc and let the program run the course, a 2 hour movie can take about 3 to 4 hours to copy.

A ez cap plus is that movies on a dvd or vhs which are macro encoded? ez cap doesn't recognize the macro encoding, so those old vhs tapes and dvd's can be recorded onto a dvd or a dvd-rw!

You're talking about macrovision which is actually a company. They patented an error in an analog VHS stream if you can believe it. It's for copy protection on commercial tapes. That error does not effect playback on a TV but will on other VHS decks if you're trying to record, it wouldn't effect digital capture devices either but by law they are supposed to detect it and not allow the recording.

This is not present on home videos however some devices will see common errors on home movies as copy protection preventing them from being captured.

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